DIFFERENCES GIVE LIFE TO ARTISTIC COLLABORATION
By GRAHAM SHEARING
Art Critic

In the middle of View from Zenith Gallery on the South Side is a large collaborative canvas, the work of Michael Pezzulo and Sharon Spell.

It's something of a mysterious figurative work, rather different from the other works in the exhibition (which are not collaborative). Its execution was suggested by David Goldstein of Zenith, not with the intention of it being the centerpiece of the show, but simply to see how it would work.

Both artists are showing figurative work and at first glance one would have doubted the possibility of collaboration. Pezzulo paints boldly with dark pigments, often employing a striking impasto, whereas Spell's work is colorful, rather graphic, and thinly worked with a palette knife.

I don't doubt that each artist had the interesting experience of coming to terms with the work of the other (the painting took several evenings to complete), and, to the viewer at any rate, the effect is that of an "integrated" painting. Both work, incidentally, in oil paint, on paper and canvas.

Pezzulo has been a member of the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh, Group A and Alchemy, and has participated in a number of group shows. He is self-taught and is a regular sort of Pittsburgh artist, only he has come to prefer to work more independently of organizations. He has another job, which gives him a certain freedom, and he has his own studio, for he is driven to work as regularly as any regular artist.

Pezzulo's noncollaborative work in this show (which is what really matters in the case of each artist) differs from previous shown work, such as those pieces shown at Zenith in an Alchemy show. These former were dark, abstract works, and it is thus easy to see the genesis of the present show in terms of pigment and handling.

The figurative elements he is now working on immediately call to mind a number of artists: for me, Chaim Soutine and Frank Auerbach. (Pezzulo agrees.) But the thickness of paint found in the paintings of both of those artists is evoked, rather than achieved, in the case of Pezzulo. He uses paint thickly, but often mixes (or throws) paint thinners on the canvas, keeping his pigments workable as well as introducing some luminosity from the white canvas.

Look at these paintings as encounters. They are expressionist in content and handling. The oils are manipulated with a palette knife, although sometimes one feels they are almost manually kneaded like bread. Titles come afterwards, all passion spent.

Spell has only been in the city for about 18 months. She has three jobs, as well as being a painter, all of which involved her very closely in the cultural life of Pittsburgh. She works in the education department of the Andy Warhol Museum on the North Side, works for the Three Rivers Arts Festival and teaches at the Saturday art classes at the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh in Oakland. (I had forgotten about the art classes, which have played such a prominent part in the lives of many young artists in Pittsburgh, some of whom have become famous.)

She is also a live wire, which may give you a clue as to how she paints.

These paintings have a graphic quality, achieved however with a fine and dexterous manipulation of the palette knife, spreading and removing pigment, layer on layer. She uses rather pretty-pretty colors, no strong "expressionist" pigments here, maybe a dash of orange occasionally, and plenty of white.

She is not self-taught, in that she studied art, but does not exactly applaud her teachers, and admires the work of Jean Dubuffet (this is clear in the show) and the idea of found and appropriated elements. And a recent massive biography of the artist Jackson Pollock "changed her life." Oddly enough, her painting has a fine and distanced beauty, reticent even, certainly not suggestive of "art brut" or abstract expressionism. Sometimes a kind of humor, or love of life, surfaces, which is immediately engaging.

This show is engaging. Both artists rather corner the visitor in their different ways. The gallery space has recently been done up, and the hanging of the exhibition is sympathetic. The paintings are very reasonably priced, and I am pleased to see that a number have sold. It closes on March 30.